Calculating amount of firewood in a log?

[Husky137]

You stick to your theoretical calculations based on your hypotheses (most of which involve incorrect assumptions) and I'll stick to real world experience. Yours is obviously limited enough that you can't wrap your head around the conversion that I have tried to politely explain. Just because you can't make it work in a nice little formula on the internet, doesn't mean it doesn't work in a real world application. My conversion stacks up every time.

FWIW, another accepted concept in the firewood industry states that 128 cubic feet of cut split and stacked firewood, only contains aproximately 80 cubic feet of solid wood.

Now you can give me a break doc.


I'd love to chat some more, but I have to go cut some real wood.

 

[Wood Doctor]

FWIW, another accepted concept in the firewood industry states that 128 cubic feet of cut split and stacked firewood, only contains aproximately 80 cubic feet of solid wood.

Now you can give me a break doc. I'd love to chat some more, but I have to go cut some real wood.

OK I'll go all the way down to 80 cubic feet of solid wood that's 37.5% waste in air, bark leaves, knots, and whatever other useless trash is in the pile (skunks, mice, rats, snakes, bugs etc). I can hardly believe that, but if you say so, I will try my best.

80 cubic feet of solid wood is 960 bd ft--not 500 bd ft because there are 12 bd ft in a cubic foot. My case rests.

 

[KsWoodsMan]

Well, KSW and Harry, I finally got your attention. .

Ed, you dont need my attention.

I'm not wasting my time educating someone that thinks they are smarter than me.

Stop following me around looking for a "debate". I'm happy for you that you can run a spreadsheet that says you can get this much wood in your piles. In real practice it isn't going to happen. If you have all the time in the world maybe. Maybe if you skin off all the bark and waste the knots and ends then split only into quarters so they all lay perfectly with no gaps. It could happen. Do as you like , say what you please about my posts. I have lost interest in this conversation or any other from you in the future. I will politely smile as I continue to ignore you.

Good day.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Ed, you dont need my attention.

I'm not wasting my time educating someone that thinks they are smarter than me.

Stop following me around looking for a "debate". I'm happy for you that you can run a spreadsheet that says you can get this much wood in your piles. In real practice it isn't going to happen. If you have all the time in the world maybe. Maybe if you skin off all the bark and waste the knots and ends then split only into quarters so they all lay perfectly with no gaps. It could happen. Do as you like , say what you please about my posts. I have lost interest in this conversation or any other from you in the future. I will politely smile as I continue to ignore you.

Good day.

Are you kiding me? What on earth gave you the idea that I thought I was smarter than you? I never said that, but if I implied it, then please forgive me. I use spreadsheets only because I spent several years teaching myself how to work with them and eventually wrote three books on Excel spreadsheet applications.

C'mon, Alfred E. Newman, bury the hatchet. We are all woodcutting buddies in this forum, and discussions are needed by all. Please stop taking things personally.

 

[cityevader]

I'll jump in with something. A few years ago I got nearly two full pickup loads of end cut lumber, everything from 2x4 to 6x12, from the local lumber yard.
They were thrown into the truck, then neatly and tightly stacked, like a giant game of Tetris, into my wooden shed. It seemed amazingly small compared to when it was thrown into truck. It stacked, vaguely remembering, something like 3 foot square and maybe 6 feet tall......zero, i mean zero air gaps.
That winter,the corner pier underneath the stack sunk nearly 2inches, it was that heavy.

What does this have to do with board feet vs cords? No idea...
I like stories.

 

[Backwood]

reading this got me to wondering too. If I took wood that came off the bandsaw , sawed to 1 inch thick and 8' long and stacked it without stickers 4' wide 8' long and 4' tall that would be ( 4 x 8 x 48 ) that would give me a stack of lumber containing 1536 board feet with no airspace. subtract what ever you think the voids would add to, 20% - 30% ??????? if you figured 20% voids it should be close to 1228' 30% voids should be 1075'
I guess it would make a big difference in how tight you stacked it, I worked for a guy 20 years ago that wanted to throw it in the truck just as crossed up as possible to use less pieces of firewood per truckload, he might have been able to stack it with 60% voids

 

[turnkey4099]

Ed, you dont need my attention.

I'm not wasting my time educating someone that thinks they are smarter than me.

Stop following me around looking for a "debate". I'm happy for you that you can run a spreadsheet that says you can get this much wood in your piles. In real practice it isn't going to happen. If you have all the time in the world maybe. Maybe if you skin off all the bark and waste the knots and ends then split only into quarters so they all lay perfectly with no gaps. It could happen. Do as you like , say what you please about my posts. I have lost interest in this conversation or any other from you in the future. I will politely smile as I continue to ignore you.

Good day.

What he said.

Harry K

 

[The Lorax]

So this would be a 1/2 cord roughly?
4x4x4 stacked with almost no air gaps.

 

[jrclen]

The air that is included in my wood pile contains the oxygen needed for my fire to burn. So it is part of my fuel equation. I leave the twigs and leaves in the woods, they are to hard to pick up. opcorn:

 

[KsWoodsMan]

So this would be a 1/2 cord roughly?
4x4x4 stacked with almost no air gaps.

ROFLMAO - Yeeip ! It is exactly no less than 1/2 cord. But it is too pretty to burn.

 

[cityevader]

What if i traded my "half cord" of end cut lumber for a "half cord" of as-tightly-packed-as-i-can-get oak branch cuttings (say...2" diameter or less)? Nary a straight one in the bunch, but still "tightly packed". I guarantee it'll weigh at a bare minimum 30% less!!

Can we kill this thread with an MTV Deathmatch? Have some claymation characters duke it out, woodpile to woodpile?

 

[KsWoodsMan]

Duke it out over what ? how much wood in a log ?
nah ! we are ALL right ? We all just do things differently.

 

[Husky137]

80 cubic feet of solid wood is 960 bd ft--not 500 bd ft because there are 12 bd ft in a cubic foot. My case rests.

It is a good thing that you rested your case because you assumptions are wrong. You don't understand how a LOG RULE works. When BF is calculated to project yield in a log they use a LOG RULE, International,Scribner,Doyle, whatever. They don't get their slide rule out and figure the volume of the cylinder.(which would be pointless since no log is a perfect cylinder. You've made the same mistake as the Craigslist guy.

There are not 12 BF in a cubic foot unless it is a solid chunk. If it is sawn, you lose yield to saw kerf and edge trimming.

So to try and explain again.

If I take enough logs that measure out with an international log rule to yield 500BF of sawn 4/4 lumber and cut,split and stack them for firewood instead, I will have roughly 128 cubic feet of stacked firewood.

 

[Wood Doctor]

Husky137 said, "If I take enough logs that measure out with an international log rule to yield 500BF of sawn 4/4 lumber and cut, split, and stack them for firewood instead, I will have roughly 128 cubic feet of stacked firewood."
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:agree2: I agree with this statement 100%. By the time you slab off all the unusable wood that is perfectly good firewood but not usable for 4/4 lumber, that is exactly what you likely will have left--about 500 BF.

The amount of biomass wasted to make 4/4, 5/4, 6/4, etc. lumber is huge. If it's rough sawn, you are still not even through because that's usually planed further.